WCA May/July 2020

Telecom news

patent licensing practices had “strangled competition” and harmed consumers. A lawyer for the US department of justice will support Qualcomm at the next hearing. In addition to being a major player in the modem chip market, Qualcomm generates billions of dollars every year from licensing its wireless communication technology patents. Some of Qualcomm’s patents are essential to industry standards, and the company has pledged to license them on “fair and reasonable” terms. However, the FTC’s civil lawsuit accused Qualcomm of using its valuable patents to boost its chip business, refusing to license them to rival chip suppliers while denying them the intellectual property needed to make competing chips. Instead, the FTC alleged, Qualcomm “forced” phone makers to sign licence agreements for the patents, and refused to sell them its own chips without a valid licence in place. The original ruling in favour of the FTC would force Qualcomm to license its patents to its rivals, and renegotiate licence deals with handset makers. Sourcing raw materials – the lithium issue Study for a more sustainable industry While Australia continues to be the world’s main producer of lithium, where the lightweight metal is mined from rock, Volkswagen and Daimler together are said to have launched a study into sustainable lithium mining in Chile. The country’s Atacama salt flat is the largest source of supply in South America’s “lithium triangle” and is the base for the top two producers, Albemarle Corp of the USA, and Chile’s SQM. Growing pressure for faster production of electric vehicles by German manufacturers has prompted greater scrutiny into the mining practices around key metals such as cobalt, copper and lithium. Sustainability has emerged as a key vulnerability for Chile’s mining industry.

The Atacama miners extract the metal from pools of brine beneath the world’s driest desert, within a delicate ecosystem that depends on its limited water supply. A Chilean environmental court in December 2019 described the Atacama ecosystem as “particularly fragile”, and warned of a “high level of scientific uncertainty” around the behaviour of its water table. Water usage is also likely to become a major issue for SQM and Albemarle, as they look to boost their output from Chile to meet the anticipated rise in demand for battery metals. Can demand be met from elsewhere? Francisco Quiroga, Mexico’s undersecretary for mining, has said that investors “from at least five countries” are interested in Mexico’s potential for a lithium extraction and production industry, following a significant find in the north of the country. In January 2020, foreign operators estimated that the new mine could contain 8.8mn tonnes of lithium, putting Mexico on a par with Bolivia and Chile. If the initial estimates of lithium deposits are confirmed, Mexico is likely to join the world’s largest contributors to a lucrative and growing sector. At a mining industry event in Mexico City, Mr Quiroga told reporters that he had already met with investors from Canada, Germany, Japan, the UK and the USA to discuss potential opportunities: “There’s a lot of interest in participating,” he said. And Mexico is looking for opportunities beyond lithium extraction: “What we’re offering is more than the promotion of mining but, instead, mining complemented by activities along the entire production chain, including manufacturing.” The Mexican Geological Service has registered lithium deposits in the northern state of Sonora, and the central states of Jalisco and Puebla. Two private companies are exploring other possible lithium deposits in the northern border state of Baja California, and an area that crosses the central states of San Luis Potosi and Zacatecas.

allowed the location of mobile phone customers to be tracked. In a letter to Congress in early February 2020, Mr Pai said the bureau “has concluded that one or more wireless carriers apparently violated federal Jessica Rosenworcel criticised the length of time taken to reach this conclusion, adding, “It’s chilling to consider what a black market could do with this data.” A trade group that represents US wireless carriers appeared to act promptly, announcing: “Upon hearing allegations of misuse of the data, carriers quickly investigated, suspended access to the data, and subsequently terminated those programs.” Mr Pai confirmed plans to circulate a formal notice of liability of “one or more carriers” to the FCC commission. In 2018, a security researcher suggested that data from a Californian technology firm was able to track mobile AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile US users to within a few hundred yards of their location and without their consent. US senator Ron Wyden said he was “eager to see whether the FCC will truly hold wireless companies accountable, or let them off with a slap on the wrist.” Qualcomm Inc is urging the appeals court to reverse a ruling that it abused its position of influence within the semiconductor industry by overcharging smartphone makers for access to its patented technology. The San Francisco-based US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in an antitrust case originally brought in 2017. It is expected that the three judges could take several months to issue a final ruling. Qualcomm, a supplier of modem chips that connect phones and other devices to wireless data networks, is fighting the earlier decision of a lower court that found in favour of the regulator, stating that Qualcomm’s law.” FCC commissioner Appeals court called in on antitrust case

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Wire & Cable ASIA – May/July 2020